By Rich Winter

605 Sports

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. —- Winner’s Jude Sargent ended his high school trapshooting career in style. 

Sargent, the recent Winner High School graduate, tied for second place in the trapshooting competition at the recently completed National High School Finals Rodeo. 

“I was really satisfied with how I shot this year,” Sargent said. “Last year I didn’t do as well as I could have done and I knew I could do a lot better so I just kinda focused on that.” 

Sargent broke 99-of-100 targets during the long go-round results then came back to break 97-100 targets in the short go-round.

“They brought the top-20 back for the short go-round,” he said. “My goal was to finish in the top three and I tied with three other kids for second place so I accomplished my goal.” 

While Sargent’s trapshooting career has taken him all over the United States, the opportunity to  be part of Team South Dakota at the National High School Finals Rodeo was something special. 

“It was great because we are all just kids from towns all over South Dakota and it felt pretty cool to be part of that team,” he said. “If a kid from South Dakota was doing barrel racing in the morning we would all go watch that and if a girl was cutting in the evening we would all go watch that and cheer each other on.”

Sargent has been part of a very successful trapshooting program at Winner and says the coaches and mentors within that program have been instrumental in his success. 

Winner's Jude Sargent took home some hardware from the trapshooting competition at the National High School Rodeo Finals - Courtesy Photo

“I feel like Tim Pravacek is the best coach out there and we have a lot of good mentors like Katie Welker,” he said. “Everyone there wants to do their best and we are always competing against each other even if it’s just practice. Eventually the practice just carries over to competitions.” 

Sargent has no immediate plans of continuing his trapshooting career although he says he may shoot in some amateur competitions. For now he says he’ll get ready for college at South Dakota State University where he will be studying agronomy and precision agriculture.